In many instances, persons needing to take medicine on a regular basis need to take it in liquid form, for various reasons. The patient may have difficulty swallowing or the taste of the medicine in pill form is unpleasant. In some cases, there is a need to disguise the existence of the medicine, such as for a child under the care of a nurse or doctor.
It is also common for a person to take more than one medicine at one time, such as a medicine to regulate blood pressure and another to reduce cholesterol. Vitamins and other supplements may also be taken at that time. Patients may prefer to take all of the medicine one liquid form, rather than taking a number of pills separately.
In hospitals, nursing homes and extended care facilities, the nurse or other attendant may have a large number of patients to treat on a daily basis. Reducing medication to a single does increases efficiency and reduces costs.
There are a number of medicines that come in pill form only. In any of these situations, it has become a common practice to crush or pulverize the pills, keeping them in a pouch or bag. One example of an effective bag or pouch for pills that are to be crushed or pulverized is shown in my co-pending Design Patent Application having Ser. No. 29/256,992, filed Mar. 27, 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety.
In order to crush or pulverize the pill in the pouch, the pill is inserted into the pouch and pressure is applied to the pill. If only one pill for one patient is being crushed, any hard object can be used. However, in institutional work, as noted above, devices have been designed that crush or pulverize pills in pouches by action of an anvil and platen that come together to crush the pill between them.
One such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,637, which operates using a floating pivot point such that movement of the handle moves the platen through an arc to contact with the anvil, and the pill is crushed. The design uses a base, an anvil integral to the base, a handle, a platen and a compression link and all have three moving parts. The platen strikes the pill in the pouch before it is parallel to the anvil, arcing into the pouch as it moves about the pivot. It is possible for portions of the pill to shatter and slide up into the bag opening, thereby spilling. There is also a concern that the use of a pivot may, over time, become out of alignment and the effectiveness. Since all of the pivoting components are in a compact space, the handle, which should not be longer than the base to avoid protruding past the base, the force for crushing is limited by the handle length.
It would be of advantage in the art if a pill crushing device could be provided that contacted the pill in the pouch in a direction perpendicular to the surface against which the force is directed.
Yet another advantage would be if a pill crushing device could be provided that uses fewer moving parts and those parts remain aligned over long periods of use.
It would also be of advantage if a longer handle could be provided.
Still another advantage would be to produce a pill crushing device with few moving parts, for longer life and easier manufacturing time and expense.
Other advantages will appear hereinafter.